Escape Clause

Last week was an exhaustingly severe test in friendship and keeping to priorities, and I have to say, I'd do anything to prevent it from happening again.

Different people have different areas in their lives which are impacted exceptionally by the grace of God. For me, that area is Friendship. It is both my greatest failure and my biggest success. Since I could remember, I have been literally practicing this Bible verse without expecting any returns:

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:12-13

Of course, sticking to this verse closely through out my life has earned me the loyalties and affections of a very precious group of people, and I am very, very grateful for their mere presence in my life.

Just thinking of them now makes me want to ditch this entry and write happier notes instead, but I will not be doing myself a favour if I allowed myself to forget last week's lesson, so I am reluctantly blogging on. Especially now that I can talk about it without fidgeting with indignation.

After 20 years of friendship, it is really time to say goodbye when you find yourself shuddering on the inside with every comment the other person makes or when you find your sewage choked up and blood pressure past boiling point. After spending so much time spring-cleaning my house, walking past our choked toilet was enough to send me hurtling back into depression.

(And that is not even taking into consideration the many times over the years that I found myself quietly paying for lunches, dinners, opening my home and my heart.. countless times..)

Despite my willingness to accept her together with all her flaws, I seriously had never anticipated such rude remarks to be made to me or my husband when we were really trying to show somebody and her family some hospitality from the bottom of our hearts.

At my lowest point last week, I actually asked the Lord what went wrong with the "love thy neighbour" equation. I think apart from the natural state of anger and frustration as the nightmare continued unravelling and lingered on for the rest of the week, I was feeling very worried because I'd grown up with the notion that God wants us to love our friends no matter what.

His answer was two-fold: two verses and a very detailed (supernaturally well detailed, because I typically can't even remember what I ate last week) sojourn down memory's lane.

The verses are:

There is a friend, which is only a friend in name. ~ Ecclesiasticus 37:1

There exist companions disposed to break one another to pieces, but there exists a friend sticking closer than a brother. - Proverbs 18:24

I'm not very happy to find Bible verses that vindicate my decision to bid this person farewell actually exist and I'm not proud to have had to draw a line. But I simply cannot live with my two men at odds with me at the same time, for anger is also not part of God's plan for my own family.

The one thing that calmed me down tremendously was that through causing me to remember all that happened in such great detail, God allowed me to see just how much my own mother and other respected members of our church have helped this person's family over the years despite their constant, perpetual battle with managing their finances. It was as though, in my troubled, darkened mind, He gave a quiet nod towards me sealing off my heart and filled my thoughts with His calming, assuring, healing light.

Ever so quietly, He not just gave me the go-ahead to pen the closing chapter but took a spare moment to bless me with assurance of His abiding love. I now feel no more anger towards this person, and forgiveness isn't very far off. Dad has stopped blaming his daughter (for now) and Rz is no longer sullen about the situation. But I'm not going to forget last week's disaster in a long, long time and I am now keeping alert should this same person try her nonsense on any one of our other mutual friends.

I'm so heart-glad that our God is not an inflexible god who throws down laws without attaching to them escape clauses. I am glad He loves us enough and doesn't want to set His own children up to fail.


- 2 December 2008 2:13am -